NASA to send probe into Jupiter's orbit

A journey to Jupiter is scheduled to begin today, when NASA plans to launch an ambitious probe to reveal the interior of the largest planet in the solar system.

The $1.1 billion Juno mission will arrive at Jupiter in 2016, where the solar-powered spacecraft will have to hit a precise orbit over the planet's poles. Mission controllers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday approved the launch for 8:34 a.m. Arizona time, though there was a 30 percent chance of rain that would force a delay.

After its launch aboard an Atlas V, the most powerful rocket in NASA's inventory following the retirement of the space shuttle, the 8,000-pound spacecraft will unfurl three 29-foot long solar panels to provide power to Jupiter, five times farther from the sun than Earth is.

"We're getting closer to Jupiter than any other spacecraft has gone," says mission chief scientist Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute.

Juno will travel over Jupiter's poles only 3,100 miles above its clouds.